This invention relates to an electronic reference product providing the ability to search for all members of a common group.
Electronic computers have long been found useful for the storage of large amounts of data and rapid retrieval of portions of the data. Designers of computer hardware and software are continuously challenged to extract higher performance from available computing resources. For applications involving data storage and retrieval, higher performance entails the ability to store greater amounts of data and to retrieve the data in less time. It is particularly challenging to obtain higher performance from the limited computing resources available in a hand-held electronic reference product.
One type of feature useful in an electronic reference product is the storage and retrieval of grouped data items. For example, lexical words (e.g., English words, French words, etc.) are data items which can be grouped according to their ending sounds in a rhyming dictionary, or according to their definitions in a thesaurus. In an electronic reference product, it is desirable for the user to have the capability to enter one word, and for the product to retrieve and display all other words belonging to the same group. Thus, in an electronic rhyming dictionary, when the word "base" is entered, the product retrieves "trace," "airspace," "showcase," and all other words in the electronic database which rhyme with "base."
The number of words that can be stored in the database of the electronic product is limited by the size of the product's memory, and the search speed is limited by the processing speed of the product.